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Mike's Window

A commonly held 'view.. '

"Well, it worked in Windows 95!"

MVP Award years

2005 - 2006 - 2007

2008 - 2009 - 2010

2011 - 2012 - 2013

The original MVP logo

My Favourite Utilities

Speedfan is a great hardware monitor which can automatically control fan speeds, warn when temperatures are rising in the case, and do a SMART scan of your hard drives. A 'must have'.. http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

Piriform Speccy tells you what is inside the box and with great accuracy.. http://www.piriform.com/speccy

Networx shows download/upload bandwidth used.. http://www.softperfect.com/products/networx/

Piriform Recuva is probably the best file recovery utility around and is free too.. http://www.piriform.com/recuva

Treesize shows you what you have got, where it is, and how much space it is all using.. http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml

Windows 8 alternative start menus.. Classic Shell.. http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/

Stardock Start8.. http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/

EaseUS Partition Manager is the best free utility of its type.. http://www.partition-tool.com/download.htm

YoWindow, a weather utility which appears to work with the Windows 8 desktop.. http://yowindow.com/

My Favourite Gadgets - Windows 7 and Vista only..

Gas Buddy.. http://www.londongasprices.com/VistaGadget.aspx

NetMeter.. http://addgadget.com/

Network Monitor.. http://samwtucker.com/

Asst'd gadgets.. http://gallery.djinngo.com/gallery/index.html

Weather fun.. http://yowindow.com/

Syndication

Blog Archive List

Et Tu, AVG?

Version 8.0 Is NOT compatible with SpywareBlaster or Spybot 'immunize' features. The AVG people are well aware of this and sent this e-mail to a user in response to problems encountered, suggesting the following actions.. Dear Sir/Madam, According...

Published Fri, May 9 2008 10:09 by Mike Hall

Filed under: Vista, XP, Spyware, compatibility, Windows, Utilities, General
Where To Get Device Drivers ..

Windows Update should only be used to obtain drivers for a device in your computer if you are unable to locate drivers for a simple generic device like, for example, an internal modem or network interface card. You could take a chance and try others which...

Published Tue, May 6 2008 20:14 by Mike Hall

Filed under: drivers, Hardware, Windows, General
The Operating System War - A Conflict Without End..

Which OS do you use? Do you use it out of choice or because it came pre-installed? If it wasn't pre-installed, would you have the general know how and technical ability to install your own OS? Some of you would make it work but, for many, the 'out...

Published Sun, Apr 27 2008 14:37 by Mike Hall

Filed under: Windows, General, Linux
AVG releases Version 8

Grisoft have released a new version of their Anti-Virus product. It has a new look icon and new look interface. Download the new version from.. http://free.grisoft.com/ Uninstall version 7.5 or whatever anti-virus solution you are presently using, and...

Published Sat, Apr 26 2008 9:55 by Mike Hall

Filed under: Vista, XP, Windows, Utilities
Updates, Updates, Updates..

The Vista language packs are back.. .. for those of you who like to switch to some obscure language and then see if you can find your way back to an operating system that you understand. There are thirty four packs on offer, essentially thirty two different...

Published Wed, Apr 23 2008 9:09 by Mike Hall

Filed under: Vista, Windows, An aside, General
Low Virtual Memory Warnings..

.. happen because you thought that.. 1. your friend was right about having everything run in RAM, so you deleted the page file.. 2. you thought that you could recoup some badly needed and, in your opinion, wasted hard drive space, so you deleted it or...

Published Tue, Mar 11 2008 18:54 by Mike Hall

Filed under: Vista, XP, Windows, General
Need for Speed - Vista vs XP

I now have conclusive proof that Vista is 'apparently' every bit as fast as XP.. For all of these tests, I followed exactly the same procedures each time. The installations are on individual drives in the same machine, not set up as dual boot...

Published Mon, Mar 3 2008 10:14 by Mike Hall

Filed under: Vista, XP, Windows, General
Recovery Partitions - Why you should NOT delete them!

You may think that an OEM is being 'cheap' by putting a recovery partition on a computer and NOT giving you original Microsoft CD/DVDs. They take up valuable hard drive real estate, but the content of a recovery partition is maybe more valuable...

Published Mon, Feb 25 2008 11:20 by Mike Hall

Filed under: Vista, general tip, Windows, System Recovery, Backup
Vista Capable?

A judge has ok'ed the class action lawsuit against Microsoft regarding the 'marketing' stickers applied to the front of XP machines in the months leading up to the release of Vista. We hear that some 'big noises' within the Microsoft...

Published Sun, Feb 24 2008 14:05 by Mike Hall

Filed under: Vista, XP, Hardware, general tip, Windows, Political
Life after Vista SP1..

You know something has worked well when newsgroup 'nay sayers' fall silent or suddenly change sides. Windows XP had problems when first released. Make no mistake, it was a quantum leap forwards especially for Windows 9x/ME users, but it was dogged...

Published Fri, Feb 15 2008 11:13 by Mike Hall

Filed under: Vista, SP1, general tip, Windows
Defragmenting without the tears..

For those of you who are suffering withdrawal since the Vista backroom boys took away the visual part of defragmentation, you can come out now. The nice people at Diskeeper Corporation have just what you need, and prices start from only $29.95 for the...

Published Thu, Feb 7 2008 15:47 by Mike Hall

Filed under: Vista, XP, software, Windows, Utilities
MSCONFIG is not an on/off switch..

You don't believe me? So go take a look for yourself.. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310560 It is a DIAGNOSTIC tool. It has never been officially designated an on/off switch, but it became common among Windows 9x users to use it as one. The problem...

Published Wed, Jan 23 2008 10:32 by Mike Hall

Filed under: Vista, XP, software, general tip, Windows, Utilities
Low Disk Space Warning After Backing Up..

Preface The general idea behind backups is to create usable retrievable copies of data onto media that is then kept isolated from the computer system until such time as there is a necessity to retrieve any of them. The term 'backup' is also synonymous...

Published Sat, Jan 19 2008 18:02 by Mike Hall

Filed under: Vista, XP, Hardware, software, Windows, Utilities, System Recovery, Backup
Clean and learn..

Remember 'First Aid', 'RegClean', or 'CleanSweep', 'Norton System Doctor', or 'Nuts n Bolts'? If you were a Windows 9x tinkerer, you might. The idea behind them was to aid the computer user in case of problems,...

Published Wed, Dec 26 2007 23:36 by Mike Hall

Filed under: Vista, XP, general tip, Windows, Utilities, System Recovery
Page File Placement..

Page files do not exist purely to use up valuable hard drive real estate. Windows is not the only OS to use a page file. The page file is not part of some underhand Microsoft scheme to force you to go out and buy a larger hard drive. The page file exists...

Published Tue, Dec 11 2007 21:28 by Mike Hall

Filed under: Vista, XP, general tip, Windows
EMERGENCY, EMERGENCY.. MACHINE DOWN!!!.. BREAK OUT THE BACKUPS..

Prologue Wait up. I hear voices in the wind. ".... I didn't know how to work the program... nobody told me I had to do it... I didn't have any blank CD/DVDs... my friend who is a computer expert told me that it was unnecessary.. I never read...

Published Sat, Nov 24 2007 11:37 by Mike Hall

Filed under: Vista, XP, Hardware, software, general tip, Windows, System Recovery
Vista's 1st Birthday..

The Delivery From the point where I knew that Vista RTM was on its way, I had a nerve wracking time in MS Connect. I had already downloaded Office 2007 earlier in the day, and was now pacing the floor, continually stopping at the screen to see if Vista...

Published Wed, Nov 21 2007 12:58 by Mike Hall

Filed under: Vista, XP, drivers, Hardware, software, compatibility, SP1, Windows
Virus/Trojan or Hardware? A Few Tips...

Your computer is acting up, and it's not always easy to tell. Some of the symptoms of a virus and/or Trojan are similar to what is seen as a hard drive sings its swan song. Question #1.. Was it always that way? Most computers when first supplied work...

Published Tue, Oct 16 2007 13:30 by Mike Hall

Filed under: Vista, XP, Spyware, Hardware, software, general tip, Windows

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Browse by Tags

A commonly held 'view.. '

MVP Award years

The original MVP logo

My Favourite Utilities

My Favourite Gadgets - Windows 7 and Vista only..

Links

Syndication

Recent Posts

Tags

Archives

Blog Archive List

Et Tu, AVG?

Where To Get Device Drivers ..

The Operating System War - A Conflict Without End..

AVG releases Version 8

Updates, Updates, Updates..

Low Virtual Memory Warnings..

Need for Speed - Vista vs XP

Recovery Partitions - Why you should NOT delete them!

Vista Capable?

Life after Vista SP1..

Defragmenting without the tears..

MSCONFIG is not an on/off switch..

Low Disk Space Warning After Backing Up..

Clean and learn..

Page File Placement..

EMERGENCY, EMERGENCY.. MACHINE DOWN!!!.. BREAK OUT THE BACKUPS..

Vista's 1st Birthday..

Virus/Trojan or Hardware? A Few Tips...